The entrepreneur behind the fashion chain is selling her stylish Swiss ski chalet. Is the £16.8m price tag a little steep?

Slideshow: Chalet La Cotze

Marilyn Anselm planned every detail of her chalet in Verbier, down to the doorknobs

Photograph: Paul Vicente

Marilyn Anselm, founder of the quintessentially English women’s-wear chain
Hobbs, is sporting a more cosmopolitan look at her sumptuous home in the
Swiss ski resort of Verbier. In contrast to the modern yet understated style
that she brought to British high streets in 1981, she’s wearing a Prada
cardigan, Gucci boots and factor 30 on the cheeks as she sits on the vast,
sun-splashed terrace of Chalet La Cotze.

Anselm and her husband and business partner, Yoram, who sold Hobbs in 2002 for
£30m, left Britain in the 1990s for tax reasons. First, they lived in a home
they already owned in the Volterra region of Tuscany. In 1999, they moved to
tax-friendly Switzerland, where they first rented, then bought, a chalet in
Verbier. “I was happy in England, and we had a lovely home there, but we had
to pay capital gains tax when it was 40%,” she recalls.